Asian Literature: Representative Texts and Authors

Representative Texts and Authors from Asia

• Asia has a vast literary tradition, with a scope and length of existence that spans centuries.

East Asia: China

• China has an unbroken literary tradition dating back to the 14th century BCE.
• The preservation of the Chinese language has enabled the prolonged existence of Chinese literary traditions.
• The Tang Dynasty (618-907) is considered the finest era of Chinese literature, with poets like Du Fu, Li Po, and Wang Wei producing renowned literary works.

Du Fu

• Du Fu is also known as Tu Fu and is considered by many literary critics to be the greatest Chinese poet of all time.
• He wrote the poem "The Ballad of the Army Cats", which is about conscription and features hidden satire that critiques the luxury of the court.

Li Po

• Li Po is also known as Li Bai and is considered a competitor of Du Fu as China's greatest poet.
• He was romantic in his personal life and poetry, and his works are known for their conversational tone and vivid imagery.
• He wrote the poem "Alone and Drinking under the Moon", which deals with the ancient social custom of drinking.

Wang Wei

• Wang Wei was a poet, painter, musician, and statesman during the Tang Dynasty, and is considered the founder of the respected Southern school of painter-poets.
• Many of his best poems were inspired by the local landscape.

Mo Yan

• Mo Yan is a fictionist who won the 2012 Nobel Prize for Literature.
• His first novel, "Red Sorghum", is still his best-known work, and tells the story of the Chinese battling Japanese intruders and each other during the 1930s.

Yu Hua

• Yu Hua is a world-acclaimed short story writer and a champion of Chinese meta-fictional or postmodernist writing.
• His widely acclaimed novel "To Live" describes the struggles endured by the son of a wealthy land-owner during the Chinese Revolution.

Korea

• Korea's literary tradition is greatly influenced by China's cultural dominance.
• Korean poets wrote literary pieces in Classical Chinese poetry as early as the 4th century CE, with transformations happening in the 7th century.
• Hangul, Korea's distinct writing system and national alphabet, was developed in the 15th century, giving new beginnings to Korean literature.

Ch'oe Nam-Seon

• Ch'oe Nam-Seon is a prominent historian, pioneering poet, and publisher in Korean literature.
• He was a leading member of the modern literary movement and pioneered modern Korean poetry.
• One of his works, the poem "The Ocean to the Youth", aimed to produce cultural reform and bring modern knowledge to the youth of Korea.

Yi Kwang-su

• Yi Kwang-su launched the modern literary movement together with Ch'oe Nam-Seon.
• He was a novelist and wrote the first Korean novel "The Heartless", which describes the crossroads at which Korea found itself, stranded between tradition and modernity.